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Faculty Fellows' Lecture and Workshop Series

Steven Zwicker

October 25, 2012 - 4:00pm

DUC 234

Faculty Fellow Lecture

The Uses of Gossip and Scandal: Why Are They Saying Those Terrible Things about John Dryden?By Steven Zwicker, Stanley Elkin Professor in the Humanities and Professor of English at Washington University

In this talk, Steven Zwicker will address the literary and social gossip of Restoration England. The talk will center on the figure of John Dryden and the political and religious conversions that seem to have defined Dryden’s career for his contemporaries. Zwicker will address the meaning of the rumors that circulated about Dryden during his lifetime and the uses to which we might now put gossip and scandal in understanding Restoration England.

Professor Zwicker is the author of Dryden’s Political Poetry (1972); Politics and Language in Dryden’s Poetry (1984); Lines of Authority (1993); and, with Derek Hirst, Andrew Marvell, Orphan of the Hurricane (2012); he has also edited, singly and together with Kevin Sharpe, five volumes of essays on early modern literature, a Penguin edition of Dryden’s poetry, and, with Derek Hirst, TheCambridge Companion to AndrewMarvell (2011). Professor Zwicker has long been a leader in establishing interdisciplinary teaching and research programs in the humanities and has collaborated extensively with historians of early modern England.

This event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be provided. Please contact 314-935-5576 or email cenhum@artsci.wustl.edu to order a free parking sticker and to reserve a seat.